"The return of football, to me, means the return of life," The Mayor said, shortly after the President of the DTC welcomed back football with a ceremonial traffic cone beer bong. "What else is there besides Redskins football and tailgating? It means I'm born again, baby."

More poetry? Coming right up.

"My hobby IS tailgating," said the President, pictured above. "I love the Redskins, but my hobby is tailgating. The Redskins are the only thing I get to flex my talent on, my talent for tailgating."

"The players need practice; so do the fans," the Mayor said.

And they weren't the only ones waxing rhapsodic about this game.

"Oh, it means everything to us," Jason Elliott of West Virginia said of football's early-morning return, sneaking back into our lives before some of us were out of bed.